US arrests of white racists inspired Turkish attacker

US authorities said on Monday that two leaders of a white supremacist group were arrested. They were also the instigators of a Turkish teenager's stabbing attack on five people in Eskişehir. They are accused of trying to ignite a “race war” and attack Jews, immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community using an online forum called “Terrorgram”.

Dallas Humber, 34, of Elk Grove, California, and Matthew Allison, 37, of Boise, Idaho, were taken into custody on Friday. “Today's indictment charges the defendants with leading a transnational terrorist group whose goal is to attack America's critical infrastructure, target a hit list of our nation's public officials, and commit deadly hate crimes – all in the name of the violent ideology of white supremacy,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Humber and Allison face multiple charges, including inciting hate crimes and the murder of federal officers, distributing bomb-making instructions, and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. According to the indictment, Humber and Allison used the encrypted Telegram platform to spread their white supremacist ideology and communicated with followers on a forum called the “Terrorgram Collective.” They spread the belief that “violence and terrorism are necessary to ignite a race war and ‘accelerate’ the collapse of government and the rise of a white ethnostate,” it says. Humber and Allison allegedly joined Terrorgram in 2019 and became leaders of the group in 2022 after another leader was arrested. Followers were tricked into believing they could become “saints” by “carrying out an attack to promote white supremacist accelerationism,” the indictment says.

At least two attacks have been linked to Terrorgram: the livestreamed stabbing of five people by an 18-year-old man outside a mosque in Turkey on August 12 and the fatal shooting of two men in a gay bar in the Slovak capital Bratislava in October 2022.

The Turkish attacker allegedly declared in a manifesto that he wanted to be recognized as a “saint,” and the 19-year-old attacker from Bratislava sent his manifesto to Allison and then committed suicide, the indictment says. The Turkish attacker, identified as Arda K., was arrested for attempted multiple murder after fleeing the scene. His victims were mainly elderly people resting outside the mosque in Eskişehir, central Turkey. Arda K. wore a helmet and skull mask similar to those worn by white supremacists in the United States. He also carried an axe and a vest.

Turkish media reported that Arda K. carried out the attack due to his “misanthropy” and expressed his admiration for Anders Behring Breivik, a convicted Norwegian neo-Nazi terrorist who killed dozens of people in two separate attacks in Norway in 2011. A report in Sabah newspaper said that Arda K. met a foreigner online, nicknamed Fjotolf Hansen (Breivik's assumed name), and received his help in planning his attack, including a failed plan to carry out a bomb attack. Arda K. reportedly told investigators that he adhered to neo-Nazi ideology and shared the views of the Ku Klux Klan.

Humber and Allison “have encouraged others to commit hate crimes and terrorist attacks against blacks, immigrants, LGBT people and Jews,” Deputy Attorney General Kristen Clarke said at a news conference.

The pair also created a list of “high-value targets” for assassination, the indictment says. This included a U.S. senator, a U.S. district judge and a former U.S. attorney, as well as government officials and executives of private companies. They also allegedly distributed an instructional video titled “How to Make a Letter Bomb.”

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